Page 85 of Would I Lie to the Duke
Panic clutched at Jess, truly squeezing her throat tight. “I can arrange for someone else to accompany you.”
“Miss McGale.” Lady Catherton fixed her with a level stare. “I consider myself a relatively tolerant person, but I must point out that I pay you to be my companion, and so I have to insist that you accompany me tonight. Now I will rest, and when I wake, I will take supper. After that, I will dress for the Ashfords’ ball. We will depart here at nine o’clock.”
There was no choice in the matter. Jess had to accompany her employer to the earl and countess’s home—where Noel would also be.
Under other circumstances, she would have looked forward to finally attending a London ball. Even better would be seeing Noel dressed in his evening finery. Surely he would be a magnificent sight.
At the thought of trying to keep him from Lady Catherton, and the possibility that he might learn the truth about her identity, all she felt was dark, smothering dread.
Chapter 24
Noel launched himself from his desk chair. He’d tried to review the mountain of documents and letters that had amassed in such a short amount of time. There were plans for a mill he intended to refurbish on his Lincolnshire estate, and several letters relating to the bill he intended to discuss with Ashford that night.
While his gaze moved over the words, he took none of them in. Everything might as well be written in Aramaic.
He scooped a sheaf of papers into his arms and stalked to the fireplace. The hell with it. He’d burn the lot.
“Excuse me, Your Grace,” his butler said from the doorway. “Mr. Holloway is here. Are you at home to visitors?”
Had it been anyone other than a member of the Union of the Rakes, Noel would have sent them away without a second thought. But hewasone of the Union, and that gave him automatic entry into Noel’s home. Besides, Noel needed distraction, and cerebral Holloway’s wisdom was welcome.
“Send him in.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Noel stomped back to his desk and dumped the papers onto its surface. He then went to a table and poured out two whiskeys. Holloway had always been an aficionado of fine spirits, and while his financial fortune—and personal happiness—had improved since marrying an earl’s daughter, he still didn’t indulge often in expensive liquor.
Holloway strode into the study.
“What good fortune that I happened to enter just as you poured yourself two drinks,” Holloway said, taking the offered glass. “Two-handed drinking is never a good strategy, Rotherby.”
“I’m reevaluating that statement as we speak.” Noel sipped at his whiskey. It burned, but not enough.
Holloway studied him. Noel stared right back as he did his best not to squirm beneath his friend’s examination, but it was ruddy hard when the perceptive Holloway had Noel within his sights.
“It’s a woman,” Holloway said at last.
“It’s not,” Noel answered.
Holloway snorted. “The very fact that you immediately deny it proves without a doubt that it’s a woman. But then,” he mused after taking a sip, “it never has been a woman before, so I’ve nothing to base my hypothesis on except instinct. Still, I’m almost entirely certain that the downward cast of your mouth and your rigid shoulders indicate that you’re brooding because of a woman.”
“My shoulders aren’t rigid.” Noel loosened them.But . . . “Goddamn it, you’re right.” He turned away from his friend and walked to the row of bookshelves lining one wall. He read the titles but absorbed none of it.
“Up until very recently,” Holloway said, coming to stand beside him, “I was the last person to give anyone advice about women, especially you.”
Noel shrugged. The fact that he’d often had someone to share his bed reflected nothing about who he was as a person.
“She was a damned surprise,” he muttered.
“A good surprise? Or an unwelcome one?”
“Started out good. Very good. Now it’s a goddamned misery.”
“Ah.” Holloway rocked back on his heels, his gaze roaming upward. “Most cultures have group celebrations for matrimonial unions, and some societies even ritualize less formal pairings. But not many have traditions when those unions fragment. Which is a shame—broken hearts must be suffered alone.”
Noel gripped his glass tightly. “Soon after I’d become the duke, I had renovations done on this place.”
“I remember. Scaffolding everywhere, and the sawdust made Rowe sneeze.”
